


Complications of the Heart

by maszy



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Drinking, F/F, Mentioned violence, Niko/Eve Mentioned, No actual violence, Villanelle is still a dick, blood mention, sex mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-14 16:18:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15392610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maszy/pseuds/maszy
Summary: Eve had always been good at recognizing her emotions. Even if she didn’t understand the feeling, she knew what it was at its core. Except when it came to Villanelle.





	1. Someone to Watch Movies With

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually the second Killing Eve fic I've wrote. The first is done but awaiting editing. This one has not been beta'd at all. I also decided to split it into multiple chapters, but it's still shorter than the other fic. 
> 
> I'll post the other part next week, hopefully around Wednesday since it is already done . 
> 
> Maszyc is my tumblr.

Emotions are complicated. Messy and terrifying and complex. Eve knows this, of course she knows this intimately. Even before Villanelle, when she was just Niko’s wife and a tired and bored government worker, everything had been a web of emotions that made her feel trapped. Some felt like they had always been there: the restlessness that came with what she wanted versus what she had, the obsession with anything regarding female killers, the feeling of  _ settling.  _

She did not marry a mean man. She knows this also. Niko is kind, and deserved someone who didn’t feel like they were just settling for him. He was nice, and safe, and  _ boring.  _ But Eve had decided to settle for that, because she did love him. She still loves him. Even now, after months of chasing a psychopathic killer around the world. But now, after all of the time spent running after something that made her feel  _ alive, _ she knows she was not fully in love with him. She loved him a lot, she had spent years with him after all, but it had always lacked a passion that she didn’t know how to obtain. Something just out of reach, elusive to her all this time. 

Emotions are often overly complicated. Too many moving pieces, shifting into place and then shattering into pieces at the slightest of change. 

She had always been good at recognizing her emotions. Even if she didn’t understand the feeling, she knew what it was at its core. She recognized the anger when Niko had told her she was getting off on chasing Villanelle, she recognized the grief when Bill had been murdered, she was  _ good  _ at recognizing them.    
  
Except when it came to Oksana, apparently. The first emotions that had appeared, back before she even knew the assassin's name, was a morbid curiosity and being impressed by the skills she possessed. That quickly morphed into obsession; about  _ how,  _ and  _ why,  _ and  _ who.  _ That was easy to recognize, she knew somewhere in her mind that she was becoming too involved, and she should have cared about it. But she also knew that the chase, the  _ thrill  _ of it all, was the first time feeling truly alive in years. 

Eve didn’t recognize where it all went sideways. Where the unhealthy fascination with the younger woman morphed into something more intimate. She guesses that there was no certain moment it all happened, not really. Maybe a collection of moments that all added up to where she is now. 

Eve guesses that  _ everything  _ was going to change regardless within that first moment of hearing about Villanelle. Walking into that meeting, hearing about what had been done, was the first moment. 

Everything has led her to this exact moment. She made the decisions that brought her here, and she knows even now, knowing everything that happened, she wouldn’t change it. Except Bill, who deserved everything and is dead because of the path she led them on. 

Eve has moments all along the way catalogued and dated both in her mind and on paper. She kept a journal when she was younger because she was often forgetful about things that happened. She stopped caring about that for a while, but she started one up again after the meeting. She wrote down everything, traced spiderwebs of information and killings across continents. Eve liked it, too. She liked pinpointing which kills were Oksana’s and which of them weren’t. 

Some things she couldn’t write down. The way the younger woman had Like the way Oksana had smiled at her on the dusty road, laughing as Eve screamed out in protest at the gun pointed into the bottom of her jaw. Some emotion stirring at the thought of the younger woman  _ dying,  _ some protective instinct to prevent it. Then she had kissed the barrel of the gun and shot, disappearing without a trace. 

The sight of the younger woman in her house that she shares with her doting husband, asking for dinner after chasing her and waterboarding her in her own bathtub. She had laughed when she saw Eve holding the toilet brush at her like a sword, and it had made Eve’s heart pump even faster in her chest. Then as the woman watched her undress, compliment her, toy with her emotions like an artist. 

The whimper of pain as the knife plunged in. Eve remembered this part vividly, her nightmares plagued by the same scene over and over. 

“It hurts. I really liked you,” Oksana had said, hurt and  _ bleeding _ , and Eve had panicked. She had been so angry, then regret had overwhelmed her. She didn’t want the woman  _ dead _ . She wanted  _ something,  _ but everything was so murky in that sense as well. 

When she had returned, Oksana was gone, a ghost. Eve had wanted to chase her, but the elderly woman who was maybe a spy had no clue where the assassin had gone. She had stood in the Paris apartment with blood on her hands thinking about the way Oksana had caressed her face. She had expected callouses, rough from all the weapons she wielded. But they were incredibly soft, gentle. 

Eve had washed her hands in the kitchen five times before she could leave, scrubbing until the skin was red. They hadn’t felt clean still, not really, but she needed to  _ leave.  _ She returned to London, dazed. She hadn’t protested when Niko had handed her the divorce papers when she went home, signing them with a blank expression. She had told him to give her a few days to find a new flat despite his protests that she should keep the one they shared, and fell asleep on the couch after taking a shower and scrubbing her hands two more times. 

She had found one eventually, too. It’s wasn’t too shitty, and it was her own and not haunted by her previous life. She liked it enough, at least. 

She takes a sip of wine and keeps her eyes trained on the television. She should be in bed instead of watching some crappy show that she can’t remember the name of. But she knows that she’ll dream of  _ her  _ again tonight, of blood and regret and betrayal. She eats the takeout she had gotten earlier. She didn’t realize how much Niko had cooked instead of herself when she was living with him, but now the difference is striking. She can’t remember the last time she cooked. It’s been almost six weeks since Paris, and the last time she had ate a home-cooked meal was when she was trying to find an apartment while staying with Niko. 

She sighs, finally getting off the couch and putting away the food. She’s tired, but she is always tired these days. This is her life now; she wakes up, thinks of Oksana, eats once or twice, and falls asleep to the sounds of the trees outside her window. 

She had signed up for a defense class two weeks ago. She bought three sharp hunting knives that she keeps in her nightstand, hallway cabinet, and kitchen. She doesn’t keep one under her pillow, but she keeps the drawer to her nightstand open at night. She locks the door and windows three times before she sleeps or leaves for the day, and she covers the windows at all times. It makes her feel as safe as she can. 

She goes through it easily enough after so long without a hint of the younger woman being alive. The radio silence unnerves Eve, makes her skin itch, makes her sick with guilt. Even if the younger woman was alive, she would probably still being in recovery from the wound. 

Maybe the younger woman is in hiding, waiting for the right time to pounce. Eve shakes the thoughts off as she puts her hair up so she can go to sleep. She recognizes the emotions she has towards the incident, she knows the way regret and guilt mingle in her chest and choke her. 

She shuts the lights off in the room, opening the bathroom door a few inches so the light shines through slightly to the room. 

She dreams darkness, mirrors and smoke blocking her view. She knows someone is following her, she knows it’s  _ her,  _ but she can’t see her. She can never see her. 

\---

Eve has thought about the various ways she would see Villanelle again since the moment the younger woman disappeared after the incident. Nearly ten weeks has afforded her a lot of time, countless scenarios from in some busy part of a London street to a small restaurant. In reality, she didn’t know what exactly she expected. 

She had went out to buy new clothes today, though, because she was bored of sitting in the flat and watching reruns of the same old shows. She had walked around the stores, and all she could think of was what Oksana, fashionable and opinionated, would pick for her. What she wanted to see on her. 

She had picked a new pair of shoes and a new sweater, both black. She got socks too, the fluffy kind, she liked those the most. She was satisfied with the other two things, and even if she didn’t it would just give her another excuse to get out for a while. 

She takes the long way home, the more scenic one. She watches couples walking hand-in-hand down the streets, smiling to each other and laughing. She hates it, or envies it, or both. She doesn’t know what she wants anymore, not after Villanelle. 

The moment she opens her door after climbing the stairs to the flat she knows something is off. After two months and some change of living here, she supposes that she would just  _ know  _ if the tiniest detail had changed. She hadn’t been to observant of her home before, but after the incident with Villanelle, she had picked up the habit of knowing where everything was in her house at all times. 

She sets her bags down slowly, takes off her shoes with care and lays them by the door with her other pairs of shoes. She slips her jacket off her and hangs it up, sighing softly. She’s tired, it seems like she is always tired these days, always exhausted. 

Eve looks into the drawer of the table by the door, trying to find the knife she had hid there. It’s where she left it, neatly tucked behind the various envelopes. It’s a small blade, but she feels safer with it. She turns it over in her hand before setting it back down, knowing that if the younger woman was here to kill her it would make no real difference if she had it or not. 

She can hear the television in the living room, and she walks towards the noise. She knows the smart decision would be to run, call the cops, or Carolyn, or  _ someone. _ But she has also realized she doesn’t make the best decisions when it comes to Oksana and herself. She also doesn’t want anyone else to catch Villanelle, some selfish part of her wants to keep the younger woman to herself fully. 

She doesn’t know what she feels in that regard, which makes her feel frustrated, shame swarming her mind. 

The television is visible over the line of the couch that is just past the entrance to the room, and Villanelle’s honey colored hair is lit by whatever movie is playing. Eve stands for a second to trying to figure out the movie that is playing to no avail, recognizing on of the actresses but not the scene. She sighs again, she knows the younger woman can hear her, but she isn’t turning around. Eve walks over to the armchair that is situated to the right of the couch, falling into it. 

She didn’t expect their first meeting after everything that has happened to turn out like this, Oksana absorbed in some film and her about to fall asleep in her favorite chair. She keeps her eyes open, instead watching the movie that Villanelle seems to be intent on finishing. There seems to be an ending soon, the climax is playing out on the screen with the protagonists running from some danger that Eve has not saw yet. She still can’t pinpoint the movies title nor it’s plot. She gives up, instead watching Oksana’s profile. 

It’s nearly dark outside, the sun is going to set soon enough. She hasn’t had dinner yet, and she decides to order something in as she watches the way Villanelle’s lips twitch with a smile as one of the heroes fall on screen. Eve hates the way it makes her heart pound. She wants to say something,  _anything._  
  
Ask how the younger woman is in her house, how she found her, why she is here. It would probably be the smarter thing to do at least, to ask questions about the situation. Instead she walks slowly to the kitchen and grabs the Chinese menu from the place on the refrigerator where it is held by a magnet. 

She orders the food quickly, ordering extra just in case Oksana wants some. The younger woman seems to enjoy food, and Eve doesn’t want to die without eating dinner first, if she is to die tonight. Maybe all of this, the watching a movie thing, is some weird kill foreplay for the younger woman. Instead of thinking about it, Eve returns to her chair. Villanelle is still watching intently, and Eve wishes that she would just say  _ something.  _

The movie, as it turns out, was not close to ending. It was one of those movies that had multiple scenes of peril for the heroes, running and fighting and crying. Eve sits and watches, and tries to list every movie she can remember with a similar plot. The knock at the door is an appreciated interruption from the little game of  _ guess the movie  _ she had been playing with herself. She pushes the knife behind her purse in the hall, grabbing money as she opens the door. The delivery person, a teenage boy who smiles at her widely, gives her the food and she tips him, kicking the door closed as he walks off. 

She hesitates for a moment at the end of the hall, unsure of it to go to kitchen first or where Villanelle still sits. She decides to just get it over with, walking into the room and placing the bag down on the coffee table. Villanelle pulls her attention from what finally seems like the ending of the movie, looking up to Eve. 

For a second Eve feels like she can’t breath. The younger woman looks so young, softer than before with all of the bruises littering her face. She has always been so beautiful. The cut on her lip has healed to a scar, and her lips look soft, plush in a way that makes Eve’s heart ache. 

She clears her throat, “I ordered food. I don’t know what you like, and I don’t know if you’re going to kill me or something,” she pauses, and Oksana arches one of her eyebrows, “but I figured I wouldn’t want to die without eating first.”

Oksana’s lips twitch upwards as if she is going to smile, and Eve goes to retrieve silverware from the kitchen, bringing it back and handing the younger woman a spoon and fork. She only has one bow considering it’s just her, and she’s glad she bought more than one pair of silverware. She grabs her own food, broccoli and steak with a side of rice, and sits in her recliner. She sits with her legs crosses under her, and tries to avoid looking back at the younger woman. 

Oksana ends up opening everything in the bag, placing them out in front of her like a feast. Eve lets her, and a wave of affection runs through her at the sight. She hates that too, how the assassin has weaved herself into the threads of her heart. She sighs and turns her attention back to the movie. It’s in the final scenes, the damsel the group had saved looking at the hero with lust and admiration, leaning in for a kiss. Eve imagined herself doing the same, leaning in to kiss Villanelle, taste her. She cringes at herself, shaking the thoughts away as the finale music begins playing from the television. 

The younger woman eats quickly, but Eve already knew this. It’s obvious she likes food, and while takeout isn’t the most fancy food, she seems pleased enough. Eve wants to ask _why now_ so many weeks after, so many nights wondering, did she show up? 

Instead she watches the credits of the film roll on screen, the title flickering before her. She recognizes it from watching it with Niko a few years ago when it first came out. She hadn’t been much interested in the plot, but Niko had asked and she had gave in too quickly. 

Villanelle finally looks over at her, her face void of any emotion at all. The look is unnerving, and Eve fidgets slightly, staying quiet. But her mouth works against her once again when it regards the younger woman. 

“Why are you here? After so long, why’d you turn up today? How did you even know where I moved to? Wait, of course you’d know. Disregard the last question,” she rushes out, impossibly fast, “Are you going to kill me? Because I am so sorry I stabbed you. I didn’t mean to. I mean I did mean to, I grabbed the knife. But I didn’t want to kill you, or hurt you. I just wanted to make you feel pain. Which is basically the same thing I guess. I don’t know.” 

She sighs, running a hand through her hair and down her face. She is even more tired now, impossibly so. She wants to sleep for a year or three, get away from everything for a moment so she can  _ breath.  _

Villanelle looks at her with the same impassive face as before, opening her mouth before closing it again.    
“I didn’t like that movie,” the younger woman says, and Eve stares at her blankly for a second, trying to understand what she had just said. 

“I… Me neither,” she says, almost a question. She doesn’t know why the conversation topic switched, and she rather not ask regardless. She wants an answer, of course, to all the question. She wants a response, but she doesn’t at the same time. Once more the idea that emotions are complicated flits across her brain before dissolving when Oksana tilts her head slightly, looking at her with light eyes. 

The food is all done, open containers sitting on the table, and Eve shifts her gaze to them instead of staring back at Villanelle. The younger woman is intense, she always is. The stare makes Eve want to fidget, pace instead of sitting down. The television is turned off as another movie starts with the remote in Villanelle’s hand. 

She had drank nearly two glasses of wine by now. Her head is blurred around the edges in a way that makes her feel lighter than she usually does now days. 

She looks back to the assassin’s face, and makes eye contact despite the fact she doesn’t want to, despite that it makes her feel anxiety crawl into her bones. 

“Do you know how painful a stab wound to the abdomen is, Eve?” 

Eve wants to apologize again, almost does before she clenches her jaw shut. She shakes her head instead, unsure of what she will say it she opens her mouth to respond. 

“Incredibly so. Lots of recovery, all of it was boring to get through, and painful. I’m all cleared for physical activity now, the doctor said,” Oksana says, and Eve wants to ask which doctor she went to, were they part of The Twelve? Were they paid handsomely, maybe the best in their field? 

Eve then thinks about how the last part sounds dangerous. The fear from when Eve realized who she had met in the bathroom that first time is replaced by curiosity, longing. Different emotions swirling around her head, clogging her throat. She wants to say something, but can’t put the words together. She’s glad when Villanelle continues. 

“I was angry for a very long time at you. I thought about killing you, or stabbing you back,” and Eve’s heart thrums in her ears, loud and unwanted. She isn’t sure what the confession makes her feel, and the emotions tangle in her chest uncomfortably. She waits for the younger woman to continue the sentence. 

“But I promised not to, so I won’t,” Villanelle says, and Eve feels another tug of an unidentifiable feeling in her chest. 

Eve nods her head once, slowly. She feels like she is underwater.  “Then why are you here?” she asks, even more slowly. The question still hasn’t been answered if she isn’t being murdered tonight. 

Villanelle just hums, a beautiful melody that Eve feels echo through her heart like a song. She closes her eyes for a second. 

“What’s your favorite movie, Eve? Or your favourite genre of films?” 

The question throws her off kilter, and she opens and closes her mouth multiple times because she doesn’t actually know what she wants to respond each time. She gathers her wits after some time. 

“I… I don’t know,” she says, stuttering the whole time. Villanelle just stares at her, waiting for a better response than the one she delivered. Eve thinks about it for a second, “I like romantic comedies, occasionally. Spy thrillers otherwise.” 

The younger woman’s lips quirk upwards, and she lets out a huff of breath that sounds like a laugh. Eve wants to be defensive, but instead she asks repeats the question back. 

“Well, what’s your favourite genre of movies, then?” she prompts, and she feels bolder than she did before with learning new information. 

Villanelle looks at her, and her response must be already on the tip of her tongue. “I prefer adventure films. Or historical ones.” 

Eve turns the information over in her head, trying to reconnect the ideas with what she knows about the younger woman. She can’t, not now. But maybe later. Maybe everything will change later, of course. The pause in the conversation makes her drift, the world quiet and stable for the first time in a long time. 


	2. A Ghost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "She thinks faintly about the line that must have existed at one point. The line between obsession and whatever she feels now, between work and her personal life, between her and Villanelle. Whatever line had existed before has been crossed before now..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic was fun to write, and a distraction from the one I still haven't truly finished (because writing longer things is hard for me to do for some reason). I'm proud of the ending I think, so that's neat. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!

She hears the younger woman shift on the couch, and Eve looks over to see her deep in though. “You’re not hard to find,” she says, frowning at Eve. “You should work on that. The Twelve may kill you.” 

It’s the first mention of the group since she saw the younger woman on her couch, and Eve wants to ask every question that has clogged her head about the group. Instead, she nods. But she still isn’t scared. She’s not sure if it is because she never got the answers to if Carolyn is part of the group, or because death no longer causes a streak of anxiety to cut her in half. The emotions around death are complicated, too. None of them are fear, though. Not anymore. 

“I… I didn’t want to be put in hiding. That would mean telling someone what I did. I don't think Carolyn knows what happened. I never told her, at least. I didn’t tell anyone. Not Elena, either. She was very angry when I said I went to Paris without her.” 

Villanelle blinks, staring at her. She hasn’t drank anything but water, requesting it when Eve had asked if she wanted wine as well. Eve thinks about the fact it probably wasn’t very smart of her to drink around the younger woman. She has good control over herself usually, but not with Villanelle, and certainly not when she’s had something to drink. 

She wishes for a second that she hadn’t opened the bottle of wine in the first place. But the glasses she had make her feel braver, staring back at the younger woman. 

“What about your husband?” 

The question loops itself in her head for a second, and she doesn’t know what to say first. That she is divorced now, or that she would never tell him either. She had meant it when she said it would be just them. She didn’t know she meant it in more than just that moment at the time, but the plea still rings true. That truth won’t stray unless the younger woman wishes for it to. 

She thinks that Villanelle should know they’re no longer together, especially seeing as how she no longer has a ring on and she moved out of their shared flat. 

“We’re no longer together,” she says instead of voicing that train of thought. Villanelle looks almost pleased at the information, as if Eve stating it out loud would make it realer. In a way, it does. Eve had spent a chunk of her life with Niko. She loved him, she still loves him. She had been content, and maybe she could have gone on like that. But she knew she would never be truly fulfilled like that. In another way, meeting Villanelle was a blessing and a curse all at once. 

She decides not to voice that she wouldn’t have told him either, even if they could have worked it out. 

Villanelle hums again, and Eve looks down at her hands. For a second she can picture the blood again, the vivid red. She had never liked it, never liked how bright it was. She liked darker shades. But the blood of the younger woman that had covered her hands, she thinks, is the worst of all. She had scrubbed her hands in that ornate bathroom in the Paris apartment four times before she could leave. When she returned to London, to the flat she shared with Niko, she had scrubbed her hands till they were red in the shower, hot water beating around her. 

She wonders briefly if she’ll ever stop thinking about what it felt like, what it looked like. She wonders if she will ever look at her hands the same way she did before, because the hands she has could have belonged to a killer if maybe Villanelle couldn’t find help, if the knife went to the right or left, up or down. 

They say nothing for a bit, and Eve gets lost within her thoughts. She numbers each point of contact they’ve had. The hand around her wrist in her kitchen, the knife held by Villanelle’s hand pressed against the fridge, the hand in her hair, her cheek. Straddling the younger woman as the knife plunged in deeper, pressing her hands against the wound. 

She has always seeked grounding, she guesses. Niko provided a boring but stable life, and it had grounded her to the life she had led. She felt at times she would float away. The life she leads now, chasing Villanelle, grounds her in a different way. One that makes her feel alive in a way she didn’t before. 

She stands slowly, cleaning the table of the food they had ate. She brings it all to the kitchen, breathing in and out slowly. She feels the younger woman follow her, quiet but obviously present. She puts all of the food away, cleaning the kitchen slowly. 

Villanelle sits on the counter and swings her feet, and Eve almost laughs at how she resembles a child in the moment. 

“I don’t think I would have killed you. Maybe just hurt you back. I don’t want to kill you,” Villanelle says, an admission that seemingly surprises both of them. Eve breathes in deeply once, holding in the breath for as long as she can. 

“I… didn’t– _ don’t  _ want to kill you. I was angry. God, I’m still angry,” she says, sighing for the millionth time. She looks over at the younger woman, and for a second she feels like she’s floating. 

Villanelle looks at her, assessing her face before finding what she’s looking for. Maybe she was making sure it was the truth. Eve thinks rather suddenly that she wants to kiss her. Her hands twitch where they’re crossed on her chest. She always did like beautiful things, had looked at art and poetry. She loves beautiful and dangerous things like Villanelle. 

She squeezes her bicep, and wishes instead her hands could touch the skin revealed by Oksana’s shirt. It’s black and flowing, slightly sheer. The top two buttons are left opened, and Eve wishes she could touch the skin there, smooth and beautiful. She wants, and wants, and  _ wants.  _ She clenches her jaw. The younger woman’s shirt is tucked into black slacks of some smooth material that Eve wants to feel, and she wears no shoes. Eve briefly focuses on where they are, since she didn’t see them by the door. She stares at the socks on Villanelle’s feet, stares at the point where they disappear under the slacks. 

She closes her eyes again. She counts backwards from ten, then forwards. 

“You never answered why you’re here,” she tells the younger woman. Villanelle looks at her closely, and for a second it looks like she may dodge the question again. 

“I wanted to watch a movie. Is that a crime,” she asks, all innocent eyes and pouting lips. Eve wishes for the second time that she could kiss the younger woman. Instead she glares at the obvious red herring. 

“I meant the  _ real  _ reason.” 

For a second, Villanelle looks at her as if she won’t tell the truth. Eve doesn’t know what she wants the answer to be regardless. She wants to sleep. She wants to kiss the younger woman. She wants…  _ something.  _ Everything has become so complicated.

“I thought seeing you might help me come to a decision,” Villanelle tells her. Eve looks at her, and for a second she wants to hold her. The expression she wears if odd, both blank and full of thought. She wants to ask what she needed to come to a decision on. But she knows it was if she wanted to kill her or not. 

She breathes out quickly, nodding. She decides to ask it anyways, “And what did you decide?” 

“We both know if I decided I wanted you dead, you already would be,” Oksana states, and Eve knows it’s true. She doesn’t have nearly the same skill level that the younger woman does, not even close. The fight would be no match, and what happened last time won’t happen again. 

There is a silence that follows it. Silence that rings out in Eve’s ears. Outside is the noises that always surround London: cars, people talking, faint arguments from her married neighbours. 

She wonders briefly is she could kiss her, if Villanelle would let her. Would she take over the kiss, place her hands on Eve’s hips? 

She thinks faintly about the line that must have existed at one point. The line between obsession and whatever she feels now, between work and her personal life, between her and Villanelle. Whatever line had existed before has been crossed before now, completely ignored by both parties. Maybe the line never existed at all, a figment of Eve’s moral imagination. 

She laughs suddenly, half delirious. She knows it’s a bit mad of her to laugh in the face of death so freely, but she can’t help it. The sound bursts from her chest, gone in an instant. Villanelle tilts her head slightly, a silent question in her eyes that Eve has no answer to. 

“I imagined out first meeting after what happened to be different. I had so many dreams about it. In some of them you would kill me. That’s pretty fucked up, isn’t it? I guess it is, considering everything. It felt like you were haunting me sometimes.” 

She wishes for a second she could retract her rambling. She always did have that habit, talking until something finally stops her. She stops when Villanelle hops off the counter, taking a step forward. Eve takes on backwards, a reflex almost. She isn’t afraid, not in the way she would expect to. Villanelle has always held herself like a predator, a tiger stalking its prey. But Eve doesn’t feel so much like prey as she does deadweight on her feet. Her back hits the counter. 

Villanelle tilts her head again, one of her eyebrows arching. Eve squeezes her eyes shut, focusing on the noises outside the window by the sink. There is something talking on the street below, indistinct words bleeding together. 

When she opens her eyes again, Villanelle has an expression on her face that she has saw before. It’s showed up in her dreams more often than not, the same look she had as they were in the Paris flat, Villanelle touching her cheek. Eve thinks for a second that she may die, just stop existing all at once. She surely does not deserve that look, not after everything. 

The look is there and then gone as Villanelle takes another step forward, and then she is just inches away, close enough to touch. Eve wonders if the younger woman would allow her to touch, to kiss. She knows that emotion clearly enough, longing. It snakes into her chest and squeezes when she looks into Oksana’s eyes. She wonders briefly what the younger woman feels. What she dreams about, what she masturbated about. 

The thoughts cause her face to heat up slightly, a blush spreading onto her cheeks. Heat curls low in her stomach, and she shifts slightly. 

“You’re an odd person, Eve Polastri.” 

Eve laughs again, because she truly is. She had been told that more than once; especially with her hobby of researching killers. She thinks distantly that she’s gone a bit mental at this point in her life regardless; wanting to  _ kiss  _ the killer she had once tracked, not being frightened at the prospect of death. She doesn’t understand herself sometimes. 

She doesn’t understand a lot when it comes to the younger woman. She remembers vividly the way Villanelle had leaned in on the bed, she looked so much softer than she usually did. But then the anger chewed through her, and then she just  _ did _ it. She only vaguely remembers how she tried to help, the shots that rung out; then there was the helplessness, the  _ despair.  _   
  


“I am. God, I am,” she says, and Villanelle is still so close. She can smell her, lavender and something sweet like honey. She wonders if its shampoo, or maybe her perfume. She wonders if she makes it herself. She wonders too many things, things she should know about the younger woman that she wants despite that fact. 

She looks up at Villanelle, only a bit taller than her but even more tall up close. 

“You’re certainly an interesting woman,” Villanelle states. Eve’s heart skips a beat in her chest before picking up a rhythm that she thought was previously impossible. It beats loudly in her eyes, and for a second she thinks she may just faint. 

She never believed herself to be too interesting. Then again, not many people have stabbed a killer and lived to meet them again. She guesses her life has become one of  _ those  _ movies now. 

She refrains from saying that she isn’t, refrains from saying some snarky back. She mainly just wants to sleep.

Villanelle turns on her heels and walks back to the sitting room, moving silently on socked feet. She looks smaller than she is, and Eve watches for a moment before following. 

She sits on the same chair she did earlier, tilting her head back slightly to look at the ceiling. She wants to sleep, she wants to sleep for  _ years.  _

She wants more wine, and she realizes suddenly that the slight buzz that surrounds her is, if anything, causing her more trouble than it is worth. 

She thought Villanelle was going to kiss her, she thinks as she looks at the ceiling. She  _ wanted  _ the younger woman to kiss her. She wanted to figure out why Villanelle smelled like lavender and honey, what her lips felt like,  _ tasted  _ like. 

“You’re all I dream about anymore. You take up every inch of my thoughts. I hated it  _ before _ ,” she doesn’t clarify before what, because it’s obvious  _ what.  _ “But now all I dream about is  _ you, _ the way the blood looked, the look on your face. I hate those dreams the most, you know. Hate them with all I have. Sometimes I dream about what would have happened if I didn’t stab you.” 

She looks over at Villanelle for a second, and something shifts in her chest. 

“Sometimes I wish I kissed you instead,” she admits, and for a second the confession hangs in the air. Villanelle closes her eyes, breathes in deep. 

“Yeah,” Oksana sighs, “me too.” 

She wants to apologize again, and she feels the words try to claw their way out of her chest. She has tucked so many thoughts of the younger woman away. She had interviewed and been hired in some bullshit entrance level position at some random government agency. She had gotten a nice apartment. She had kept in contact with Elena and Kenny as best as she could, going out for drinks when she wasn’t dodging their questions about what happened to her for those two days when she was in Paris. She placates Elena with the promise that the Paris apartment was empty, no true leads.

But every thought in her mind is plagued with blood, with the pain on Oksana’s face, with the thought of  _ what if.  _

Villanelle turns the television back on, flipping to some documentary channel with a soothing voice relaying information about jellyfish. The younger woman looks interested in it, and so Eve looks on. 

All the lights in the house are off. She knows this, she turns them off before she leaves a room or her house for the day. Outside the window is dark, and the windows are covered with blinds and locked tight. She checks this too before she leaves. She wonders briefly how Villanelle got in the house, but decides not to ask. 

She knows it’s not smart to fall asleep in the chair she is in, or around an assassin who entertained killing her for that matter, but she is exhausted. She starts drifting, and doesn’t try to stop herself from falling asleep. 

Just before everything turns dark, she hears Villanelle shift on the couch, whispering something. 

“Sweet dreams, Eve Polastri.” 

\---

Eve wakes up to the sound of screaming from the street below her window. She slowly catalogues the difference between waking up now from all the other times in this flat. For one, she isn't in her bed at all. Instead there is the unforgiving line of her armchair, and she cracks her neck slightly as she stretches. The next thing is that she has a blanket over her, and while it isn’t totally different from every other night, she knows for a fact she didn’t get it herself. Her chest expands slightly as she realizes that Villanelle had covered her as she slept. 

She looks around, and tries to explain away the brief period of disappointment at not seeing the younger woman as something other than longing. The third thing she notices is that she isn’t truly hungover, but she does have a headache. And quickly after that she notices the ibuprofen on the table with a glass of water. She smiles to herself, taking the pills and drinking the full glass of water. The younger woman is more thoughtful than Eve had guessed. 

The last thing she notices is that there is a note taped to the dark screen of the television, too far to read sitting down on the chair. She gets up, stretching again. Her back cracks pleasantly, and she’s glad she has the day off. 

She takes the note off the television, and she doesn’t know quite what she expected. But maybe she does, because for that’s happened, she knows their game of cat and mouse by now. 

The note, in the loopy all caps handwriting that Eve recognizes as Villanelle’s, says ‘ _ Until Next Time, Baby x’.  _

Eve laughs, too sudden and loud in the empty space. She smiles for a second, placing the card on the table. She walks slowly to the kitchen, looking at the microwave for the time. It reads almost a quarter till ten in the morning, and she hates that she woke up so early. 

She stares out the window, standing in the same place she was last night. She thinks about Villanelle’s eyes, the way she had smiled, tilted her head. She wishes she had kissed the younger woman, and she wonders if that is going to be a regret she will keep having every meeting they have. 

She shakes the thoughts away, going to her room to shower and get ready. She wants to go out, do  _ something.  _ She doesn’t know what yet, but the first plan is to get breakfast from the shop down the road with the best croissants. Elena would be jealous of her living so close to it for sure, she muses as she brushes her teeth. She looks at herself in the mirror, and she looks more rested than she did yesterday, or the day before that, or any day for the past months. 

She assumes it is because the question that has played in her mind for weeks, the one question that swallowed all other thoughts, is answered. Villanelle is alive, and doesn’t want to kill her for some reason that Eve can’t understand beyond anything at face value. 

She grabs her phone from her bag in the hall, turning it on quickly. There is a text from an unknown number, and Eve knows that its  _ her  _ without looking at it. 

_ Maybe next time we may finally kiss. Don’t think about it too often while I’m away, Eve Polastri.  _

Eve laughs, “God, she’s a dick.” 

She doesn’t include the fact that she likes that. Doesn’t even think about the fact that she may  _ love  _ her. She shakes her head at herself. 

_ I guess we’ll see,  _ she replies to the text, just to be a dick back. Eve hopes the prospect of  _ next time  _ keeps Villanelle awake at night, the same way she’s sure it will keep her up. 

Emotions are complicated, and she doesn’t understand them when it comes to Villanelle at all. But she knows this specific emotion, knows at its base it all comes back to the longing that has burned under her skin like fire for as long as she can remember when she thinks of Villanelle. 

She wants, and wants, and  _ wants,  _ and one day she’ll receive what she wants to have. 


End file.
